AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell and lease-back its "Lone Star Campus" located at 7171 Southwest Parkway in Austin, Texas to 7171 Southwest Parkway Holdings, LP, an affiliate entity of real estate investment company Spear Street Capital. Upon closing, net of all fees, the sale is expected to generate approximately $164 million in cash. The proceeds are expected to be reflected in the company's first quarter 2013 financial statements when reported on Apr. 18, 2013. At closing, AMD will enter into a 12-year lease with an extension option to continue its operations on the campus. The transaction is expected to close on or about Mar. 26, 2013.

The sale of AMD's Austin campus is in keeping with the company's strategy to reduce investments and capital in non-core parts of the business, including real estate. In 1998, the company sold and currently leases-back its headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. In 2008, it sold and currently leases-back its major site in Markham, Ontario, Canada. Recently, AMD also began marketing the sale of its Building 3 property located at 5900 East Ben White Boulevard in Austin, Texas. Building 3 is a largely unoccupied property whose operations and employees will be consolidated at other AMD sites.

"As we reset and restructure AMD for long-term success, we are taking a number of steps designed to optimize our business and monetize assets," said Devinder Kumar, chief financial officer of AMD. "The sale of our Austin campus will unlock a significant amount of capital, while the multi-year lease back of our Austin campus reconfirms our long-term commitment to the city that so many AMD employees have called home since 1979."

The company expects to record a special charge of approximately $50 million in the first quarter of 2013 primarily related to the difference between the sale proceeds and the carrying value of the property. AMD employs approximately 1,900 people in Austin.

A lot of businesses do this - even ones with buckets of cash. It allows them to free up capital that was locked in the value of the buildings and invest it in areas that will make a greater return than the extra costs involved with leasing the building back.

Legally, that isn't possible. Any time a commercial building, or even residential building, is sold the new owners must honor the leases currently in place. They can choose not to renew the lease when it comes to an end, but they can't just toss the people out on the street. So AMD would be safe for at least 12 years.